Steroids

Steroids are a type of natural product with a very special structure. They have a four-ring (A, B, C, D) mother nucleus. This mother nucleus looks like the Chinese character "田", and has a corner methyl group at C10 and C13, and a side chain at C17. The side chain on the mother nucleus looks like the Chinese character "巛" (pronounced chuan). The Chinese character "氮" (sterol) vividly represents this type of compound. This skeleton is also called a steroid nucleus. Steroid compounds are one of the most widely occurring components in natural products. Almost all organisms can synthesize steroid compounds by themselves. Steroid compounds have not only made special contributions to human health as drugs, but also the particularity of their stereostructures has also played an extremely important role in the history of organic chemistry, especially in organic chemistry theory, such as perfecting the theory of stereochemistry.